AYALA Land, Inc., the property arm of
conglomerate Ayala Corp., has set a P100-billion budget for capital spending
this year, which it said will be partly financed by its record fund-raising
activity.

HIGH-RISE TOWERS in Makati City are seen
from atop a skyscraper in this photo taken on Jan. 9. The Makati business
district’s developer Ayala Land, Inc. has raised P16 billion from a share sale
to partly fund its P100-billion spending plan this year. -- AILEEN CAMILLE B.
DIMATATAC

Both listed companies disclosed to the
stock exchange on Monday that Ayala Land completed the placement of 484,848,500
common shares at P33 apiece, raising P16 billion in fresh capital.

That price represents a 5.7% discount
to Ayala Land’s closing price of P35 on Jan. 9. Yesterday, the company’s shares
ended trading at P34 apiece, down P1 or 2.86%, its biggest one-day loss since
Nov. 27 last year, data from the Philippine Stock Exchange culled by
BusinessWorld showed.

Shares of its parent Ayala Corp. also
ended in the red, shedding P5 or 0.7% to P710 apiece.

This year’s capital expenditure budget
was higher than the P70-billion budget Ayala Land programmed last year, as the
property developer charted an expansion plan to boost profit by 20% annually to
P40 billion by 2020.

“Ayala Land has set aside P100 billion
in planned capital expenditure this year for its various projects,” parent
Ayala Corp. said in its statement.

Ayala Land President and Chief
Executive Officer (CEO) Bernard Vincent O. Dy said the funds raised will
support his company’s “aggressive growth trajectory” through 2020.

“This 16 billion peso placement
represents a landmark transaction for us as it is the single largest
capital-raising exercise in the 23 years that Ayala Land has been a listed
company,” Mr. Dy was quoted in the statement as saying.

The share sale was done through a
top-up placement, where parent Ayala Corp. sold the shares in Ayala Land and
then subscribed to the same amount of new equity in the builder.

The conglomerate, the country’s
oldest, said the transaction will shrink its stake in Ayala Land to 47.3% of
common shares from 48.9% but it will retain voting control at over 68.9%.

The offer was oversubscribed with 90%
in the order book being foreign institutional investors, Ayala Land said.